Encouraging Joy & Grace

The Wall of Faith will be a weekly feature here at Quirky Faith. My goal is to gather lots of your stories so that we can encourage each other. If you have a story or an idea please send me a note on the contact page. This week I'm thrilled to share a post from my good friend Jennifer. This lovely lady makes me laugh. Enjoy.

Laughter in the Midst of the Sprinklers

Our Liberty Bible church family received a shock a short while ago. We had just picked up our little ones Wednesday evening to discover the following morning that a Molotov cocktail bomb had been thrown through the nursery window at 3AM , starting a fire. Thankfully, our sprinkler system responded quickly and efficiently dowsing the fire. However, it did cause a lot of water damage in about half of the lower level, which happened to have been just newly constructed a couple years ago.

My first reaction was shock.To think that it happened in the same section where our four-year-old son had just been frightened me to death. Then came anger, sadness, fear, you name it.

I have become known for is posting humorous memes on Facebook. What began as just a personal therapy to me has become a ministry to others. People would come up to me and ask me to keep posting these. They would tell me how it always brightened their day and I discovered many would actively look for these posts daily.

However, after posting about the fire, I hesitated to post anything funny for awhile. I didn’t want to come across as uncaring or unconcerned. Then I began to think about my church family. Surely they were going through the same feelings I had. This was a rough day for us all! I then decided it was time for a happiness break and began to post a funny meme or two. The response was positive and I knew I had made the right choice.

I wondered how service would be like that following Sunday. Would there be a feeling of sadness or heaviness? I have never been as proud of my church as I was that Sunday. Liberty Bible people have this wonderful stubbornness and resolve in the face of adversity. Praise and worship was full of celebration of how God had protected us. How things could have been so much worse than they were. The focus? Let’s keep moving forward. To reiterate what our teenage son had texted the day of the incident. “Well, we can’t let that stop us now, can we?” Forgiveness for the perpetrator and hope for their salvation was expressed. As Pastor Larry said, “Bitterness is a poison in which you swallow in hopes that it will harm someone else.”

However, the part that blessed me the most was how my church family was able to find humor in the midst of it all. They could still find the pony in the midst of all the manure, if you will. I loved how our Praise and Worship Pastor got so tickled that now we were temporarily back to our original size foyer. The rest of our foyer was taped off with Caution tape and plastic and the whirr of shopvacs hummed from the other side.We laughed as Pastor told of arriving at the scene and being told by a police officer to remain in his car. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why would you have me come all the way here just to remain in my car?” …. “Well Sir. We have several canine units running around on the grounds now and…”….. “No problem! I’ll stay in my car.”

Proverbs 17:22 states, “Laughter does good like a medicine.” Why? Laughter provides healing. Laughter works the muscles releasing stress and causing them to relax. It also releases infection fighting anti-bodies. Studies have shown people have been healed of terminal illnesses by a steady diet of comedy movies, jokes, and humorous stories.

Our church family had been wounded by an event we had no control over. We were shaken and the laughter provided healing.

Laughter puts things into perspective. It reminds us of how short life is and to not wallow in the “heavies” forever. It provides us the second wind to get through the heavies, clear our minds, and heal our hearts. It reminds us that God is tougher than the toughest of times in our lives and His shoulders are strong enough to carry us through when we feel wounded, scared, or helpless.

I thank God for God! I thank Him for His protection! I thank Him for His Word! I truly believe that all the scriptures and prayers we wrote on the beams and plywood before sheet rocking created a shield of protection from the fire getting out of control. I thank Him that the church is us having each other and we were together! Unharmed! It’s not a building. I thank Him for His medicinal gift of laughter to us when the fire hits and the water pours. What a beautiful, delightful gift!